We’re Back. Five Best And Worst Moments In Parliament For Budget Week.

This was a really important week in Australian politics. The Government made clear what it stands for, and Labor made clear what we stand for. The difference couldn’t be greater. So here is this week’s 5 & 5.

BEST:

1. Bill Shorten’s speech on Thursday was great. The final section on what Labor believes says it all.

2. During a post budget interview on Tuesday night Joe Hockey admitted levies and co-payments were really just taxes. The next day he denied it. First they lied, now they’re lying about lying. Watch Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen catch Joe Hockey out here.

3. It was great to see Shadow Health Minister Catherine King holding the government to account over their attempted destruction of Medicare. Labor established universal healthcare, and Labor will fight Tony Abbott’s GP and Hospital taxes.

People should get the healthcare they need, not the healthcare they can afford.

4. Shadow Minister Jenny Macklin has been hard at work crunching the numbers since budget night. On Thursday Jenny exposed just how much this budget will hit pensioners: hundreds of dollars a year. Needless to say, we will be opposing cuts to pensions.

5. Finally, Anthony Albanese put together a great video that shows how the Liberal’s so called “ infrastructure plan” is no plan at all.

It’s a great video, although when it comes to drawing pictures I’m encouraging Albo not to give up his day job. Toot toot.

WORST:

1. The worst moment this week is pretty obvious. On Tuesday I posted on Facebook asking people to guess how long into Joe Hockey’s Budget Speech until he started breaking promises. For those who were wondering, it was five minutes and forty seconds.

Before the election Tony Abbott promised no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions, no cuts to the ABC or SBS and no new taxes. He broke every promise on Tuesday night.

2. Young people took a big hit in this week’s budget. When Tony Abbott was asked what young people were supposed to do when they can’t find work and aren’t getting any support for six months, he didn’t have an answer.

3. On Wednesday at the Conservative Breakfast Club (yes that’s a real thing) Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said pensioners had blown their superannuation on “a few cruises and the luxuries of life”. How out of touch can you get.

4. After Joe Hockey kept saying he was up for a debate with Chris Bowen, Chris stood up and asked Joe to come with him to the National Press Club on Wednesday. Joe Hockey channeled Tony Abbott in his answer: “no”.

5. Cricketer Corey Anderson holds the record for the fastest one-day international century, scoring 100 runs off just 36 deliveries. On Wednesday Bronwyn Bishop got a century of her own.

Booting 100 Labor MPs out of the Chamber in just 36 parliamentary sitting days, with Terri Butler being the hundredth. No doubt she’ll get the double century by Christmas.

I was also a little concerned though when during the applause after Bill’s Budget In Reply Bronwyn Bishop appeared to take direction from Christopher Pyne to quieten the Chamber down.